Calming the battles caused by marital breakup

Friday, October 11, 2013

By Noreen Fagan, Ottawa Citizen

Divorce itself is just the beginning; the dissolution of a marriage can lead to a host of conflicts.

Photographed by:Laurent Hamels, Fotolia.com

Eric Letts has seen up close families torn apart and children suffering the consequences of divorce and custody disputes. As a family lawyer, the toughest part of his job is witnessing parents fight and the damage it causes the kids. “It’s not like a war zone — it is a war zone. People are coming in with the same disputes, problems and frustrations dealing with issues where there are two houses.”

Children are often shuttled between houses and left in the isolation of their own homes, without the opportunity to participate in extracurricular activities.

To alleviate custody battles, Letts, along with his wife Dr. Lauren Donen, a child and adult psychiatrist, have come up with the concept of fair parenting agreements.

The premise is simple. One parent has their child or children on a Monday and Tuesday, the other on Wednesday and Thursday. Weekends alternate and all parental exchanges are made at the school — no child can be “swapped” in parking lots or at a Tim Hortons.

To enrol in the Fair Parenting Project, Carleton Place parents go to a website(fairparenting.com), fill in a form, electronically sign it and then get a family lawyer to validate it. If parents cannot agree who is parent A (with custody on Mondays and Tuesdays), Fair Parenting Project has a solution — whoever has the lowest Social Insurance Number is, by default, parent A.

In 2007, Letts started enrolling some of his clients in Ottawa.

“It didn’t solve all the problems. Parents were still having problems with such issues as daycare or sporting activities, because our communities are not designed for children with two homes ­— they are designed for one home,” says Letts. But the parents were generally happier, he said.

Unsatisfied with the small differences the plan made, Letts decided to move from downtown Ottawa to Carleton Place. He felt testing the project in a smaller community would result in a better outcome for two household families.

In the fall of 2011, Letts convinced the other family lawyers in Carleton Place of the benefits of his project. Within two years the law firms have enrolled more than 200 children in the split-schedule plan. Letts has also made some leeway in co-opting commuting services to participate in the project.

“The community has morphed and changed policies to accommodate the Fair Parenting plans. Carleton Place is a discreet community. It’s far enough from Ottawa that most of the people who live there, their children are going to go to school there, do their activities there, whereas closer communities like Carp, they may go to school in Ottawa,” says Letts.

“We wanted to get a community where the children were doing everything in that community. We wanted to find a place where the numbers would make a difference.”

In July 2013, Carleton Place council endorsed the Fair Parenting Project. Councillor Doug Black, who chairs the community’s Good Neighbours, Great Neighbourhoods Committee, felt the project was “an opportunity to improve the quality of life of our residents.”

“What struck me about the Fair Parenting Project was the opportunity to reduce conflict, improve children’s health and capture more parents participating in the community through coaching or other activities. Less parental conflict in consequence of flexible scheduling equals greater opportunity to participate in the community,” said Black. “The municipality’s role will be one of education and creating awareness. I think any time awareness is raised, it is more than half the battle.”

Letts, who becomes rather animated when talking about the plan, says participating in the project does not cost much, and the small scheduling switch makes it easier for families and helps children normalize their situations and take part in more activities.

“Children from separated parents are at risk for a whole host of social ills, from depression to dropping out of school, to not succeeding with their careers. One of the biggest insulators to that is getting involved with team sports or activities. If we can get more children involved in sports it is going to make a vast difference to those children’s lives,” he says.

The local daycare now sells half spots (part-time day care) and some sports teams have also adjusted their schedules to accommodate the parenting swaps. Under the guidance of Sandra Christian, the project’s sports director, the Goulbourn Girls Hockey Association (GGHA) agreed to be on board with the Fair Parenting Project.

Cathy Bureau is the president of GGHA. “I was immediately on board because there are so many families affected by divorce or separation in the Stittsville area and we, as an association, want to make the child and family have as positive an experience as possible,” writes Bureau.

“We have always, as with most sports in general, tried to help families out by taking turns getting kids to their activities. We at GGHA ensure that friend requests are met so that families have help with all the logistics that come with getting a child to the rink for either practice or a game. We try to have set days for practices and set days for their home games.”

Letts is concentrating primarily on bringing sports activities and school bus schedules in line with the plan.

Some daycare providers, and even dentists, who are willing to enrol parents in split payment options, have opted in on their own accord. When asked how school buses can be part of the scheduling change, Letts points out that there have been a series of human rights decisions regarding school buses.

“One of the protected grounds in human rights legislation is family class and service providers, school boards have been ordered to honour parenting plans,” he says.

The Fair Parenting Project is working with the Upper Canada School Board’s transportation authority, the Student Transportation Eastern Ontario, to accommodate children enrolled in the project.

“What the Fair Parenting Project does is make the best of a difficult situation. There is at least one common schedule that a good portion of the kids are on, so the school bus will only have to make adjustments for that particular schedule,” Letts says.

“We are trying to solve, through scheduling, a common problem these families face. Just tweaking scheduling is going to resolve some of the problems.”

The new school bus schedule rolled out in September.

Letts acknowledges that the Fair Parenting Project is not the answer to all custody battles but, “if we can have them (the parents) fight about shower curtains rather than children, we have done something good.”

Letts feels the project could work in a larger community if service providers are prepared to make minor changes.

The project has also attracted attention from beyond Lanark County. In May 2013, Letts spoke about the project at The Association of Family and Conciliation Court in California, with some 150 Canadian judges listening.

He has also talked to the governor of Delaware in the U.S. and to Andrew Swan, the minister of justice and attorney general in Manitoba, who has expressed interest in a pilot program.

Letts says the plan is not for everyone, but if communities are willing to get involved, there can be positive outcomes.

“A community approach to parenting has not existed since the increase in the divorce rate that began in the 1970s and it’s the first of its kind,” says Letts.

“If the community makes the changes, there is no downside. There is no putting children at risk; it’s painless and there is no cost. “We are not asking for any public funds — just get your pencil and eraser out, or your backspace key and mouse and you can do it.”